Martin Hsu - Dragon Boy

When it comes to vinyl figures, I've always known that I have an affinity for cute cartoonish characters. What I've noticed on this post is that there tends to be a very strong asian element to these figures too. Today I will be talking about 'Dragon Boy', a figure that I fell in love with back in 2012 and has stuck with me all these years.

Martin Hsu is an artist based in California that holds strong ties with his native Taiwan. Hsu is an astounding artist that has worked as a character designer for Disney and Nickelodeon, but has had a strong focus on his fine art career in the past few years. Though Hsu can work a variety of mediums, his art work seems to focus on paintings on wood.

Dragon Boy is an original character designed by Hsu and was made into a figure back in 2012. Since then, many variations on the figure have been released, as well as figures for Dragon Boy's cloud-surfing friend, Blackie the Kirin Chow Chow. I absolutely love how expressive and fun the character is and am always impressed by the charming sense of wonder from the little boy. Hsu also clearly loves the character, and has been creating small comics to help deepen the lore of Dragon Boy and provide an origin story.